A known roof apparatus for a vehicle is disclosed in JP2006-131161β (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1). The roof apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in the Patent reference 1 is provided with a front portion slider and a rear portion slider each of which is arranged in a slidable manner in a vehicle front/rear direction along a guide rail provided at an edge portion, in a vehicle width direction, of an opening portion formed at a roof portion of a vehicle body. The roof apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in the Patent reference 1 is also provided with a supporting member supporting a movable panel connected to each of the front portion slider and the rear portion slider, and opening and closing the opening portion. The front portion slider, the rear portion slider and the supporting member constitute function parts. In a case where the movable panel is in a fully-opened state and while the rear portion slider is moved in the vehicle rear direction, the movable panel performs a tilt-down operation. When the movable panel is in a tilted-down state and the rear portion slider is further moved in the vehicle rear direction, the movable panel performs a sliding operation together with the front portion slider and is pulled in to be positioned below the roof portion. Thus, the movable panel comes to be in the fully-opened state and the opening portion is released.
A drain slider extends in the vehicle width direction under a rear edge portion of the movable panel. An end portion of the drain slider in the vehicle width direction is provided at the guide rail in a movable manner in the vehicle front/rear direction. The drain slider is connected via a rod to the supporting member. A drain frame fixedly attached to an upper surface of the drain slider is configured to be positioned under the rear edge portion of the movable panel regardless of, for example, the sliding operation of the movable panel, thereby receiving water drops of, for example, rain.
Further, a stopper is fixedly attached to the guide rail at a rear side of the vehicle relative to the drain slider. The stopper is arranged so as to be in contact with the drain slider while the movable panel is in the fully-opened state. In other words, the roof apparatus is configured so that the drain slider is stopped from moving in the vehicle rear direction by coming in contact with the stopper while the movable panel is performing the sliding operation in the vehicle rear direction. Accordingly, a movement of the supporting member connected via the rod to the drain slider is stopped, and thus the movable panel stops in the fully opened-state.
According to the roof apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in the Patent reference 1, in order to stop the movable panel in the fully-opened state, stopping of the movement of the drain slider by the stopper is transmitted via the rod to the supporting member. In this case, the rod, which extends in the vehicle front/rear direction, is assumed to be arranged in an offset manner in the vehicle width direction relative to the supporting member or to the drain slider. Accordingly, in a course of transmitting the stopping of the drain slider by the stopper via the rod to the supporting member, the load transmission is once offset in the vehicle width direction at the rod, and thus movement of the roof apparatus when the drain slider stops may become unstable.
A need thus exists for a roof apparatus for a vehicle which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.